Athletes head to the Maccabiah
From Knoxville to Ramat Gan
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Print | The American squad marches into Ramat Gan Stadium in the opening ceremonies of the 2005 Maccabiah Games in Israel. The 2009 Maccabiah games begin Monday. Courtesy Maccabi USA |
Bruce Pearl’s coaching credentials finally caught up with his desire to lead the U.S. men’s open basketball team at the Maccabiah Games.
Four years guiding the University of Tennessee team, along with hugely successful tenures at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the Division II University of Southern Indiana, put him over the top for a spot he says he’s wanted for 20 years.
“Other more accomplished coaches coached our team,” said Pearl, 49, who earned National Coach of the Year honors in 2008. “[Maccabi USA] has known for years this is something I wanted to do.”
Pearl will be part of a 900-member contingent that will represent the United States at the 18th Games July 13 to 23 in Israel. The Americans will be among some 8,000 Jewish athletes from more than 60 countries participating in the so-called Jewish Olympics, which are held every four years. Participants as young as 16 will compete.
Opening ceremonies will be held July 13 at Ramat Gan Stadium. Twenty-eight sports will be contested in the open competitions.
The host nation easily outdistanced the field in medals five years ago, bringing home 594 to 227 for the runner-up Americans. The Israelis won 228 golds to 73 for the second-place United States.
 | Bruce Pearl, left, with Bonnie Rudin and former NBA center Danny Schayes, at a fund-raising gala for Maccabi USA in April at which Pearl served as the emcee. Courtesy Maccabi USA |
Pearl says he hopes to improve on the bronze medal for men’s open basketball that the United States earned in ‘05, but it will be challenging for his young squad to reach the gold-medal game. Dan Grunfeld, a former Stanford University standout now playing overseas, is expected to power the team.
Grunfeld’s father, Ernie, a standout at the University of Tennessee and a solid NBA performer, averaged 20 points as a high school player for the U.S. team that earned a silver in the 1973 Games.
For Pearl, his first trip to Israel will be a family affair: Son Steven is playing for the U.S. squad, daughter Jacqui is the team manager, and parents Bernie and Barbara from Boynton Beach, Fla., are coming along. His fiancée will be joining him, too.
Pearl expects it to be a life-altering experience for himself and his players.
“It’s coaching the U.S. team, representing the United States of America in an international competition and coaching the game of basketball, the game I love, and doing it in my Jewish homeland,” he said. “It doesn’t get any better than that.”
While Pearl may be a Maccabiah novice, women’s field hockey coach Mim Chappell-Eber will be making her fifth appearance, her third as a coach. She recalls the bridge collapse in the ‘97 Games that killed four Australians and carrying the banner for the U.S. team in the 2001 Games.
“Being there representing the United States as an American Jew, and going to Yad Vashem and religious places, the Wailing Wall, you just become more immersed in the religious culture,” says Chappell-Eber, whose daughter, Ariel Eber, is the team’s goalie for the second straight Maccabiah. (See related story.)
Pearl says he wants to visit the religious sites and “see where it all began.”
“I’m looking forward to getting off the plane and kissing the ground, thanking the people there for all that they do for us,” he said.
Among the activities for some Maccabiah participants will be a bar mitzvah ceremony. The U.S. team will work with Rabbi Irwin Kula, president of CLAL-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, who was appointed team rabbi.
“The Maccabiah is one of the most exciting and integrated Jewish experiences I have ever been involved in,” Kula said in a news release from CLAL. “It is an expression of a global Jewish community in which people’s passion — sports — combines with a love for Israel, a developing Jewish identity, and an affirmation of Jewish unity. Just imagining a bar mitzvah overlooking Jerusalem for some 200 athletes who never celebrated their bar mitzvah says it all.”
Kula will lead services at such sites as Yad Vashem and Masada.
JTA
More on: Athletes head to the Maccabiah
Field hockey is a family affair
Mim Chappell-Eber heard the 50,000 fans cheering as the U.S. team walked into Ramat Gan Stadium for the opening ceremonies of the 2005 Maccabiah Games, the members in their red, white, and blue making a circle around the field.
It was the fourth Maccabiah for Chappell-Eber, the coach of the women’s field hockey team and a former player. But this time she was accompanied by her daughter, Ariel Eber, the team’s goalie.
“Representing the country with her was a great bonding experience,” says Chappell-Eber, who made her Maccabiah debut as a sweeper in 1993, then returned for the ‘97 Games as a player-coach. “It’s not often you get to coach your children in a setting like that representing your country.”
Aussie bowler continuing legacy of his late father
When Australian tenpin bowler Josh Small marches into the Ramat Gan stadium for the July 13 opening ceremony of the 18th World Maccabiah Games in Israel, he will be completing a journey his father started at the ill-fated Games in 1997
Small, now 19, was just 7 when his father, Greg, died after the makeshift bridge collapsed as the Australian team was walking toward the opening ceremony of the 15th Maccabiah on July 14, 1997.
Scores of Australian athletes were sent plunging into the polluted waters of the Yarkon River.
Survivors’ grandkids on U.S. soccer team
As the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, Tracy and Josh Bienenfeld may be taking a little added pride to Israel from suburban Philadelphia for the 18th Maccabiah Games.
“If they had not survived the Holocaust, I would not be here today,” says Josh, 21, a member of the U.S. men’s soccer team. “It’s unbelievable that I can say that because of their survival, I can play in Israel, a Jewish free state.”
Tracy Bienenfeld, 24, who is making her second Maccabiah appearance on the U.S. women’s soccer squad, says her grandparents’ tribulations made her realize the importance of being Jewish when she was growing up.
Olympics hero Lezak finally opts for Maccabiah
For swimmer Jason Lezak, choosing the Maccabiah Games over the World Championships came down to more than what happens in the water.
At 33, nearing the end of a career that includes seven Olympic medals, Lezak figured this might be his last opportunity to make his Maccabiah debut.
Lezak, whose record-setting anchor in the 400-meter freestyle relay propelled the United States to gold in the 2008 Summer Olympics, acknowledged it was a tough decision.
“It came to a point where if I’m going to do it, now is the time,” he said.
